Propaganda War During the Peak of the Enosis Campaign: The Case of the English Edition of Halkin Sesi Nikolaos Stelgias,1 Magdalene Antreou2 Abstract During the second half of the 1950s, the Greek Cypriot leadership, the British colonial administration and the Turkish Cypriot community contested for the right to decide the future of the island. The local press had a unique role in this political battle as a medium for the unleashing of a fierce ‘propaganda war’. The British administration propagated its messages to the public through the local English-language press, while the Turkish Cypriot community took part in this ‘propaganda war’ through the short- lived ‘English Edition of the Halkın Sesi’, which is the object of this study. The study, which relies on archival material, finds that the second largest community of the island was not a reactionary element in Cyprus’ political field. With innovations, such as the English-language version of a propagandist newspaper, the Turkish Cypriot community emerged as a vital player in the field of the Cyprus Problem. Keywords: Cyprus Problem, propaganda, Turkish Cypriots, Halkın Sesi, English language press Introduction: Propaganda war in Cyprus’ English-language press during the peak of the Enosis campaign We have decided to publish an English edition of Halkın Sesi after serious con- sideration. The object of this English edition is to state and restate the Turkish point of view on Cyprus and counter fight the prolific Greek propaganda, which is based on falsehoods or sentiment. We feel that it is high time the English-speak- ing world has a serious look at the other side of the Cyprus coin, a side, which in modesty and due to lack of means has not been sufficiently stated so far3. 1 Nikolaos Stelgias, PhD, Historian, Researcher, and Political Scientist, Journalist in Kathimerini Cyprus. 2 Magdalene Antreou, PhD, Historian and Researcher, Research Fellow at the Bank of Cyprus Cultur- al Foundation. 3 ‘Why This English Edition?’, Weekly English Edition of Halkin Sesi, 9 July 1956. 229 The Cyprus Review Vol. 31(2) The abovementioned article was published in the first issue of Cyprus’ new English-language newspaper only a few months after the commencement of EOKA’s armed action. Whilst the Greek Cypriot community’s quest for union (Enosis) with Greece amplified, the Turkish Cypriot leadership decided to initiate the publication of the English version of the well-known Turkish Cypriot newspaper, ‘Halkın Sesi’, who also fell victim to censorship and was suspended from January 21 until April 19434. The proprietor and editor of the four-page ‘Weekly English Edition of the Halkın Sesi’ was the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, Dr Fazıl Küçük. The new edition had as a primary objective to propagate the thesis of the Turkish Cypriot leadership regarding the Cyprus Issue. The Greek Cypriot side, the British administration of Cyprus and the international community, were meant to be the recipients of the newspaper’s messages. The newspaper published original articles, as well as articles discussing the Cyprus Issue, which were previously published in the Turkish press. The Turkish Cypriot newspaper began its journey on 9 July 1956. The last issue available to us dates back to 31 December 1956. During the Cold War period of propaganda wars, the ‘Weekly English Edition of the Halkın Sesi’ was one of the few platforms available to the Turkish Cypriot community for voicing its aspirations. Contemporary studies relate the ‘art of propaganda’ with the art of persuasion and rhetoric, which lay at the epicentre of ancient Greek philosophy. According to Soules, the rhetoric is ‘The art of communicating effectively and persuasively in a particular context’5. In addition, the successful practice of rhetoric depends on ‘the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion’6. As Soules argues, the rhetoric is ‘Moving toward propaganda when it is consciously misleading or exploits beliefs, values and attitudes for the propagandist’s benefit’7. In accordance with this remark, Sophocleous stresses that ‘the technique of propaganda is based on the successful combination of psychological and sociological principles and methods with the practical art of the capture, preparation and transmission of the message to the target. Its success is based on the observance of the basic principles of the 4 A. Sophocleous, Press Censorship in Cyprus during British rule (1878-1960) (Nicosia: En Typois, 2014) (in Greek), p. 187. 5 Marshall Soules, Media, Persuasion and Propaganda, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015) p. 3. 6 Ibid, p. 3. 7 Ibid, p. 3,4. 230 Propaganda War During the Peak of the Enosis Campaign: The Case of Halkin Sesi communication’8. Furthermore, according to Sophocleous, ‘before proceeding with the selection of the instruments to be used (...) the propagandist must focus on a series of actions. After deciding on the objectives, proceeds to the selection of material, which will cause the appropriate reactions. (...) The next concern of the propagandist is the choice of the most appropriate means to convey the message to the target’9. In this context, the art of the propaganda according to Paddock ‘aims to win the compliance of its mass audience and mobilise it to act, or not act in the propagandist’s interests’ with the help of primary communication channels, such as newspapers. Paddock mentions that ‘newspapers shape stories for their audience with the intent of presenting a certain view (and) that even publicity is a form, albeit somewhat milder, of propaganda’10. ‘Using language that the reader can understand, but also arguing from a perspective toward which the reader will also be ‘sympathetic’, the newspapers seek to ‘present the information that they had and were permitted to print’11. If the prelude of the French Revolution and the period that followed the nineteenth century were the starting point of the propaganda wars, in which the newspaper played a leading role, then the ‘two world wars demonstrated the power of propaganda’12. Moreover, the post-1945 period witnessed the widespread utilisation of the lessons drawn from the wartime experience13. Regarding the British media, Jenks argues that the ‘legacy of total war and the exigencies of Cold War - particularly propaganda - kept the British media tightly self-disciplined when it came to the Soviet Union and Communism’14 According to Jenks: Two world wars and an international depression had eroded Britain’s ability to project power, but the global media system it had built in the nineteenth cen- tury and the propaganda expertise it had homed in the two world wars gave it 8 A. Sophocleous, Introduction to Communication, Persuasion, Propaganda (Nicosia: Nikoklis, 1999) (in Greek), p. 21. The translations belong to the authors. 9 Ibid, p. 26-27. 10 Troy R. E. Paddock, ed., A Call to Arms: Propaganda, Public Opinion and Newspapers in the Great War. (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2004), p. 8. 11 Ibid, p. 9. 12 Nicholas John Cull, David Holbrook Culbert, and David Welch, Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the present. (Santa Barbara-California: ABC-CLIO, 2003), p. 18. 13 Ibid, p. 18. 14 John Jenks, British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univer- sity Press, 2006), p.2. 231 The Cyprus Review Vol. 31(2) inordinate influence over global news media discourse. After 1945, the British government sought to use this influence and expertise, often in conjunction with the newly arrived Americans, to defend its still extensive strategic inter- ests. The British preferred private entities such as Reuters, but increasingly turned to the quasi-official BBC and British Council and fact-based propagan- da-overt, covert and mixed-both to supplement the increasingly anemic private news sector and to keep up with the burgeoning American and Soviet prop- aganda machines. The successful exercise of this system-private, public and subsidised-in the Cold War strengthened it and thus helped Britain preserve inordinate prestige, power and influence in the global media15. In the case of Cyprus and the local English-language press, we found the government deeply involved in the news and information business. According to Stubbs and Taşeli the popular press in Cyprus was a constant source of frustration for the British. This led to the consistent suppress of newspapers when the ‘tensions between colonizers and colonized came to surface’16. The ultimate aim of the local authorities was to bolster the British influence in the political and diplomatic field of the Cyprus Issue. As in other parts of the world, the Cyprus media consensus and the government manipulation operated through the revision of the English- language media’s common view of the world situation and the Cyprus Issue. The purpose of this paper is a thorough analysis of the Turkish Cypriot English- language newspaper ‘Weekly English Edition of the Halkın Sesi’ during the first period of EOKA’s armed action. Furthermore, with the ultimate aim of enriching the study and framing it with the available archival material of other English-language newspapers published during the same period, we have studied the publications of two local English-language newspapers, ‘Times of Cyprus’ and the ‘Cyprus Mail’. According to Sophocleous, during the period ‘after the outbreak of the EOKA’s liberation struggle on 1 April 1955, the English (authorities) introduced a state of emergency and martial law. From the 5 May 1955, the Governor had the power to impose a curfew on the inhabitants based on a relative law. Journalists had to carry out their mission with special identity cards’17. The local press reacted towards many of the measures taken by the Government, which had activated its own 15 John Jenks, British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War, p.2.